Chapter 104 Looking forward to
It was fortunate that Kathrine was pretty good at procuring information.
They didn’t have to torture the shepherd, but that was only obvious because Dilan’s little demonstration broke the middle-aged man’s will in an instant.
Tearing his right ear before naming a few cruelest ways to torture him did the trick.
Not everyone could pull it off, which was where Dilan’s demeanor and appearance came into play.
He was more than enough to inflict desperation and fear within the hearts of other people.
As such, even if he knew that his death was inevitable, the shepherd told them everything as long as they promised to keep Dilan away from him.
Dilan didn’t really care about the shepherd’s life, but it was not possible for him to leave the shepherd alive either.
Thus, he was killed in a painless manner.
Nobody felt truly guilty for the death of the unarmed shepherd.
Quite a few Survivors wanted him to suffer for acting like a tyrant who would treat others like dirt and behaving like a thug who wanted to snatch their freedom from them.
The shepherd had looked down on every single one of them. This was the reason for his people’s death, and why they had been unable to take control of the small group of Survivors, Dilan was leading.-.
While Kathrine had procured the necessary intel from the shepherd, Dilan’s wounds were tended to.
Two nurses had pulled the bullets out of his chest before he focused on replenishing his Mana.
The faster he replenished his Mana the more often it was possible for him to activate his Origin ability.
As his ability took effect, his wounds and other injuries were healing rapidly. Dilan finally stopped bleeding when they had executed the shepherd.
Rather than allowing someone dangerous to stay alive, they had arrived at a consensus to kill him.
And by ending his life quickly, they gave him an easy and painless death. After all, they could have thrown him outside the hospital with a broken leg, and let him be eaten alive by the zombies!
“So there are 10 shepherds. I guess they just call the captains of the scout units shepherds. Even then, their strength is not worrisome…Rather it is the gun power they have… all of them have rifles, shotguns, or other weapons.
They raided the huge police station and owned weapons before…as expected from a gang.”
Dilan felt a little bit burdened by the information. According to the information Kathrine procured, there were more than 100 humans armed with guns.
Only the shepherds, the head shepherd, and his people were said to have absorbed Essences as well.
But even if there were 20 Ascenders in their group, the most worrisome was still the guns.
The shepherd was not at a high level, so Dilan figured that the others had not progressed much either.
Only the head shepherd and his people were what he needed to worry about.
From the report, one could easily tell that the head shepherd, his direct subordinates, and the large number of guns were the most problematic.
After all, the shepherd they had just executed told them that the head shepherd’s direct subordinates were physically much stronger than all the shepherds together!
While trying to heal as quickly as possible, Dilan’s mind was rattling. Meanwhile, everyone else had slowly regained their senses.
The dead bodies had already been removed from the cafeteria, but that didn’t solve the issue of which location to pick to switch from the cafeteria to a more secure place.
However, that was not something for Dilan to solve right now.
Everyone came up with ideas and suggestions and they began discussing things.
Dilan knew that it might be better for him to step in too but that was not something he wanted to do right now.
He was already occupied with the thought of annihilating the threats around them.
Thus, he couldn’t make the best decision about whether to leave the hospital, or just move to another floor within the hospital, or what exactly the best for the entire group would be.
In the end, they were required to find the permanent Gate to the Krendel’s Underground Valley because they had procured Lumina crystals, Silver iron ore, and Jadetite from it.
It was also necessary to have a huge working kitchen within their reach, and electricity, followed by a working smithy.
Dilan had yet to find a good workshop where Old Jeff was supposed to work.
But even if the workshop of his choice would be in his grasp, the three locations they had to keep under control would not necessarily be in the same place.
This made things frustrating and as his own mind was tired of coming up with a solution, Dilan allowed everyone to voice out their opinion.
There might be some Survivors that were great at managing groups, resources, and so on, after all!
Dilan hoped for the best without actually expecting much.
And because his expectations were so low, it was great that quite a few Survivors had decent ideas about how to advance their community in the future.
After today’s incident it was clear that strength was not everything that mattered.
Knowing one’s opponent, having a fortified shelter to protect themselves from invaders and much more were equally important.
There was simply too much to take care of by a single person. And even with the help of Kathrine and the others, it was quite difficult to handle everything.
After all, most of them were rather young, still studying, or had just started their corporate life.
That meant nobody had experience in leading a group, let alone distributing work properly.
Fortunately, they were not alone, and more than enough Survivors had slowly gotten the hang of themselves.
Working together was much better than working against each other.
It made things much easier, and living with more ease was something almost everyone looked forward to.
Even Dilan couldn’t help but think that the incident with the dozen invaders had shaken his group and propelled them into action, far more than he could have hoped for.
It drove everyone to give their best, and to keep striving for more power, whether it was physical strength, advantages in terms of equipment, or other types of benefits.
Seeing how the Survivors were slowly changing led the corners of Dilan’s lips to curl upward, and soon enough he became the main point of focus in the discussions.
After all, Dilan was not only their leader but also the strongest person.
He was willing to injure himself gravely in order to become even more powerful to protect everyone, and he didn’t whine when the situation turned unfavorable.
Even when he was severely injured, Dilan still fought with all his might as long as his people would be safe.
Thus, everyone began to anticipate the future with a faint glimmer of hope.
The dangers of the last few days became less important and a blossoming future was something everyone strived for.
And Dilan was the foundation of this promising future because he gave everyone hope when the future seemed blank and hopeless.
Dilan might look cruel and merciless sometimes, but he was also generous and kind to his people, to the extent that he would sacrifice himself for them if necessary!
Thus, with the sun setting on the 10th day after the Primordial Ascension, a small but hard-working group that was overflowing with willpower and ambition was formed. All of them had a sole thought imprinted in their minds.
[We…will survive even if that means we need to overcome death itself!]